Server Slowness and Unresponsiveness - Troubleshooting Guide

Troubleshooting Guide: Server Slowness and Unresponsiveness

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Question

A system administrator notices that a server is consistently getting slower and less responsive the longer it has been since the last reboot.

Once the server is rebooted, the system performs at the expected baseline, but starts slowing down again until the system is unresponsive.

Which of the following is the MOST likely cause of this problem?

Answers

Explanations

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A. B. C. D.

B.

The most likely cause of the problem described is a memory leak in a service or application. A memory leak occurs when a program fails to release memory it has allocated but is no longer using, leading to a gradual depletion of available memory over time. As the system runs out of memory, it will become slower and less responsive until it becomes unresponsive altogether.

A memory leak can be caused by a programming error in the service or application, which prevents the program from releasing the memory it has allocated. Over time, as the program continues to allocate new memory without releasing old memory, the system's available memory will become depleted, leading to the observed symptoms.

An OS performance misconfiguration or incorrect server resource specifications may cause performance problems, but these issues would not typically lead to a gradual degradation of performance over time. Instead, they would likely cause a consistent level of poor performance regardless of the server's uptime.

Corrupted application files could potentially cause performance issues, but they would not typically result in a gradual degradation of performance over time. Instead, they would likely cause the system to fail or become unstable.